Trump Gives Big Pharma An Offer They Can’t Refuse (TrumpRx, Who Dis?)

Trump: “You don’t have to apologize for being poor anymore…” 

*Crowd erupts* 

Oh look at that, big pharma blinked. In case you missed it, the illuminati of U.S. and European drugmakers quietly lined up and shook hands with Donny Healthcare, agreeing to voluntarily lower drug prices. Yes, voluntarily… and if you listen closely you can hear the sound of Martin Shkreli punching air. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Fourteen of the seventeen companies Trump publicly dragged over the summer caved. We’re talking the usual suspects: Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Amgen, Gilead, Sanofi, Novartis… a.k.a, the companies that don’t necessarily live in the headlines but whose pricing strategies have absolutely ruined Christmas for loved ones across America. And yet, the Art of the Deal here is simple: lower prices, list your drugs on TrumpRx (bigly), and invest more in U.S manufacturing. In exchange (read: The Don’s offer they can’t refuse), they’ll get a three-year hall pass from pharma tariffs. The only company on the sh*t list right now is none other than Johnson and Johnson… to which, Donny says they’ll “be here next week.”

(Source: CNBC) 

That said, the most eyebrow-raising brown noser move here is that Bristol Myers Squibb agreed to offer Eliquis (one of the most prescribed blood thinners in the country) for free to Medicaid patients. Again, free… as in zero dollars. What a time to be alive. Naturally, Trump called it “the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care.” And he’s not wrong. Under the hood, this is the revival of Trump’s “most favored nation” policy… the idea that Americans shouldn’t pay triple what Europeans do for the same pill just because we’re better at subsidizing global healthcare. Prices go down here, prices go up overseas, freeloading allegedly ends. God bless capitalism, apparently.

Whereas now, TrumpRx launches in January. Think Amazon, but instead of Prime Day, it’s insulin. Companies will list their most popular drugs directly to patients, bypassing some of the labyrinthine nonsense that turned PBMs into toll collectors. Merck’s tossing three diabetes meds into the discount bin. Sanofi is slashing prices up to 70% on infection and cardio drugs. Amgen is expanding direct-to-patient programs with discounts that would’ve gotten some poor soul fired two years ago.

(Source: Giphy) 

For this reason, the markets didn’t exactly moon on the announcement. Why? Because investors are still trying to game out what happens when margins compress, competition increases, and Big Pharma loses its ability to hide behind complexity. Cannabis stocks sold off on reclassification news. Pharma stocks are doing the same mental math. And looming over all of it is the unspoken part: once drugs are cheaper, federally insured, and sold D2C… Big Pharma isn’t just competing with each other anymore. They’re competing with Uncle Sam. 

Translation: Trump: 1, Big Pharma: 0. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon, Merck & Co. and Johnson and Johnson as mentioned in the article.